Form, meaning, and use
Conclusion
Even though there is a close relationship between linguistic form and meaning, there is also a certain amount of independence between them. Neither can be defined in terms of the other: speakers can produce both grammatical sentences which are meaningless, and meaningful sentences which are ungrammatical.
In our comparison of English with Teochew, we saw that both languages employ a special form of sentence for expressing Yes–No questions. In fact, most, if not all, languages have a special sentence pattern which is used for asking such questions. This shows that the linguistic form of an utterance is often closely related to its meaning and its function. On the other hand, we noted that the grammatical features of a Yes–No question in English are not the same as in Teochew. Different languages may use very different grammatical devices to express the same basic concept. So, understanding the meaning and function of an utterance will not tell us everything we need to know about its form.
Many aspects of linguistic form are arbitrary conventions shared by the speakers of a given language. For example, in English (and in most other European languages) the subject of a sentence normally occurs before the verb; but in most Philippine languages the subject normally occurs after the verb. This difference might be called arbitrary, in that it does not reflect a contrast in meaning or function. But this does not mean that the difference is random. Word-order facts within any given language tend to show interesting patterns of correlation, and the patterns observed in different languages tend to vary in limited and systematic ways.
One of our primary goals as linguists is to discover the patterns of regularity that exist in the grammatical systems of individual languages, as well as the recurring patterns common to many languages. We will introduce some basic concepts and techniques that can help you in these tasks. Our study of grammatical structure will frequently involve a discussion of meaning (semantic content), and to a lesser extent of function as well. However, it has not been possible within the limitations of this volume to address either semantics or pragmatics in any systematic way. It is hoped that readers will go on to study other books where those issues are discussed in greater detail.
